390 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
lepis had been presumed to be a congener of Asterolepis, and perhaps 
rightly so ; but we knew too little of the family of Dendrodic Celocanths 
to justify us in regarding any one as a central type. From the investiga- 
tion he had lately made into the fish-bearing sandstone of Elgin, he was 
convinced that enough material might be got together, with a moderate 
expenditure of time and trouble, to elucidate the true character, form, and 
proportions of Bothriolepis, so long an enigma in fossil ichnology. The 
studies of Professor Harkness in the physical history and relative position 
of this most interesting series of sediDientaiy deposits ought, and probably 
would, draw the attention of geologists in general to deposits which, 
though possessing local characters, were yet of world-wide value, as giving 
solutions to questions which rocks far distant had given rise to, and for 
which Continental geologists had long asked in vain. 
On a ±sew Staefish (Cribellites carbonaeius) from the Moun- 
tain Limestone of JS'orthumberland. By Mr. George Tate. — The paper 
commenced by noticing its association with carboniferous plants. Pre- 
viously no species of Asteroidea had been recorded from this formation. 
The specimen exhibited, found by Mr. AV. Wilson, of Shilbottle, was an 
impression of the upper surface only of the organism, in a yellow, fine- 
grained, micaceous sandstone, and, although imperfect, was doubtless a 
sea-star, and, as the first discovered in the formation, it deserved the at- 
tention of palaeontologists. The following characters could be observ^ed : — 
Hays five, rounded, lanceolate, five times as long as the disk, ridged in the 
centre, covered with longitudinal rows of reticulating tubercles ; disk 
small and tuberculated. The disk was only '3 of an inch in diameter, 
whilst the rays were 15 inch in length. The sandstone from which 
this sea-star was obtained was about 20 feet above the Shilbottle coal, 
and about 10 feet below the " 18-foot limestone," which was the fifth 
limestone sill in the mountain limestone of jNTorthumberland ; it was, he 
estimated, about 600 feet below the base of the millstone grit, and, as the 
formation was about 3000 feet in thickness, it was in the upper part of 
thi • series of beds. The paper proceeded : — " Besides the sand-star, there 
occur in this sandstone Stropliomena crenistria and the remains of plants. 
This association is of some interest. jN'umerous marine organisms in the 
limestones and in shales connected with them, belonging to the moun- 
tain limestone of Northumberland, abundantly evidence the deposition of 
such beds under marine conditions ; but rarely are marine organisms seen 
in the sandstones which form a large proportion of this formation in 
Northumberland. Another sandstone higher up in the series, appearing 
in a quarry, exhibits, however, a similar association. This sandstone, 
which is 23 feet in thickness, has a thin layer, one foot thick, which is 
crowded with Strophomena crenistria ; but, both in the beds above and 
those below it, there are many fragments of carboniferous plants of the 
genera Sigillaria, Lepidodendron, Calamites, Knorria, and the Stigmaria 
jicoides. These cases prove, the author thinks, that some of the sand- 
stones of the mountain-limestone of Northumberland were deposited in 
shallow bays of the sea, in which marine organisms lived, and into which 
were drifted plants which grew during the carboniferous era. These facts, 
however, do not invalidate the conclusion that coal was formed of plants 
which grew on the places where coal-beds are now found, for even in the 
Northumberland mountain-limestone fonnation each coal-seam rests on 
an under clay, which was the muddy and probably swampy soil in which 
the carboniferous flora grew. Sometimes a limestone, with marine fossils, 
overlies a coal-seam ; but we never find a limestone or calcareous bed with 
marine fossils lying below it." The paper then noticed other beds that 
